Portraiture and Life Drawing

Capturing Energy Through Empathy

My ethos for life drawing--regardless of the medium--is to capture something about the energy and life of the subject. I attain this through energetic, frenzied pencil strokes, while pulling from my illustrative character-work background to accentuate the expressions of the face, or the way they hold and present themselves to the world.

I believe in the empathetic experience of spending hours with the minute details of a person; you can't spend that long studying the form of someone without finding them to be beautiful in some way. This is what I hope to express through the drawing of people, to make the piece a catalyst for love, acceptance, and empathy.

...On Black Paper

A series of life drawings on black paper with Prismacolor colored pencil

Tori in Red

Tori in Blue

Tori in Yellow

Tori in Cotton Candy

Tori in a Red Robe

Kristen in Green

Kristen in Pink

Joe in Technicolor

The Scar Project

A series of life drawings of students with scars from surgeries or injuries

This personal project came about as a result of discomfort about the way my body looks; I have two stomach-wide scars and an ileostomy, and I wanted to portray myself and others with scars in an objective way, avoiding the "hero" or "inspiration" narratives usually placed upon people with disabilities or visible signs of illness/injury.